Filmmaking / Directing : Women Underrepresented at Oscars by Kathryn Gould

Has any female been penalized more than Griffith for historical inaccuracies? I think Women get more attention in general because of the smaller numbers. In fact I think "Women director" is used as the lead story quite often because that gets attention.

Are you talking about D.W. Griffith? I'm not sure how a filmmaker who died in 1948 is really relevant to this discussion. How many female filmmakers were around when Griffith was working to even compare him to? What audiences and critics demand from films in terms of historical accuracy has certainly changed since then. And I think that most people would agree that while Griffith's films were technically groundbreaking, his politics were questionable to say the least. Let's compare apples to apples, shall we? All of the biopics currently nominated for the Oscar have serious accuracy issues, but DuVernay's seems to be the only one to have been snubbed as a result of them.

Selma snub? It will win Best Picture, because Al's latest threat has Hollywood shaking in their boots!

Best Picture was the only category it was nominated in. It's particularly depressing that when a woman directs a worthy picture, she isn't nominated. There are few enough women directors as it is, and Oscars, even nominations help those directors get more jobs. Has no one here read the depressing statistics. Am I the only person on Stage 32 who realizes this is a problem? Come on, people!

So what do you speculate are the causes of this problem? When we know the causes we can work to mitigate them.

It's true. Kathryn Bigelow I believe is the only female ever nominated for directing. However, a lot of directors don't get nominated when their film does. Especially now that there are 10 best pic noms and only 5 director noms. Quite a few movies have won Best Pic w/o the director winning or being even nominated. It's true women are snubbed in Hollywood, but it's not just female directors who are snubbed. Every year we're always pissed out about one thing or another when it comes to the Oscars. I think they're stupid, as I question if they are really rewarded on merit or bought like the Golden Globes. But yes, women, directors and actresses come under more scrutiny than men. How many articles on a male actor gaining weight? But this isn't just a Hollywood problem, this is a US problem. Supposedly we believe we are created equal, but look at Washington DC. Women who make up 51% of the population are drastically underrepresented in our own government. So Dennis I think the causees of the problem is that our government is racist and sexist, not just Hollywood. What do women need to do to get the male vote?

You're absolutely right that it's a problem with society at large. I think that the academy is actually a great microcosm, though. It's not a bunch of cigar-smoking old men in a room saying, "let's keep them down" - whether that be because of race or gender - rather it's the cumulative decisions of thousands of people, each one of those decisions generally pretty insignificant on its own, that has an impact on entire groups of people. I'm sure each individual person who voted thought they were voting for the people who most deserved a best directing Oscar, and that race and gender had no part in it. But most of them probably also failed to really examine all of the factors that went into their decisions. In terms of gender, there are so many issues that make it difficult for women to become directors. One of those is the well-documented phenomenon in which the exact same behaviors are interpreted differently depending on gender. Many qualities that define a good leader, like having a strong personality, demanding a great deal from those around you -- when men exhibit those qualities they are considered good, strong leaders, but when women exhibit them, they are bitchy and bossy. And that's by both sexes. Considering the way that the deck is stacked against women in the director's chair, the fact that a woman directed a film that was nominated for best picture means that she had to have been an incredible leader who walked that very fine line (between bitch/good leader) and that alone is worth an Oscar nomination. I mean really, how can anyone judge a director's ability from the final product if you weren't on set? Assumptions have to be made, and that's where people's unknown biases come into play. Because of the fact that there are fewer director nominations than best pic noms, of course it's always going to feel like a snub. But I think in this case, just looking at all the things that had to be overcome in order for her to direct a best pic nomination should have been taken into consideration. The causes of these problems are widespread and complex; there is no simple solution. But making people aware of the problem is the place to start: making people aware of the judgments that they automatically make without realizing it; making people aware of the obstacles that a person has to face that they know nothing about because they've never experienced them; making people aware of the fact that their narrow point of view does not define the world we live in. I was saddened by the fact that the first two responses to my post were by white men telling me that it's not really a problem. But that kind of makes my point, doesn't it? I had a discussion with a male colleague the other day, in which he said that of the two really good ADs he knows, he'd generally hire the man because he feels that the woman can be a little too harsh and demanding. And I got to point out to him that maybe he's interpreting her behavior that way because she's a woman, and he actually stopped and said, you know what, maybe that's true. So things can change, we just have to keep having these conversations.

Hmmm. It appears that I am the second white male, but I don't see at all how my comment about Selma winning Best Picture can be interpreted as being against Kathryn's position.

Well, you said that it wasn't snubbed because it got best pic nomination. My point was that the director was snubbed (many also argue that actors and actresses were snubbed as well), so you pretty much said that what I said wasn't the case. Then you made a crack about Al Sharpton, which is kind of beside the point because he's upset over the lack of African-Americans represented, while I'm talking about women. So yeah, it pretty much felt like you were dismissing my concerns.

I'm sorry that you misinterpreted my comment. If you saw my comment from three days ago, "So what do you speculate are the causes of this problem? When we know the causes we can work to mitigate them," you will see the word "we" in the second sentence, which should show that I'm sympathetic to your concern. "American Sniper" is nominated for Best Picture, also, but because Eastwood wasn't nominated, I don't consider the film snubbed, even if he was.

Here is an interesting article about the "Selma Snub": http://patriotpost.us/opinion/32555

I'm sorry, Dennis, I didn't realize that the same person had made both of those comments, my bad. And I guess I interpreted your first comment in a way that you didn't intend. That article was interesting. It's good to hear other perspectives voiced rationally. I usually only hear conservative opinions from people trolling me on facebook. I've come to think, though, that this political divide is too far to be spanned. I'm at a loss to understand so many conservative beliefs. And people who are conservative seem to be completely flabbergasted by what I feel to be perfectly sane and reasonable. But I think the point here is that DuVernay represents not one but two highly underrepresented groups, while Eastwood represents the opposite, so it's easier to see why no one is crying foul there. Honestly, Kathryn Bigelow seems to have suffered from the same anti-conservative bias, simply because Zero Dark Thirty told the truth instead of fabricating a bunch of stuff in order to appear to be more anti-torture. No one seems to be able to see the complexity of the issues anymore, everything's so black and white-- and I don't mean racially. And the issue of why there aren't more women directors is equally complex, but worth the discussion if we can keep our heads about us.